Faith
by redex
Summary: DouWata. He has never been able to summon this courage before. Blame Fate, or Yuuko.


My first try with this fandom and pairing. I've only read to Volume 7, Chapter 2, so bear with me.

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_**Faith**_

"F-for how long?"

He should have known something was wrong when Yuuko told him to go to the park without any chores for him. She had one of those annoying knowing looks in her eyes when she told him to go.

And now he was being confessed to by Doumeki.

His brain screamed impossible, but for once the words had a hard time getting out.

_You must decide how you will treat Doumeki._

"Forever."

When Watanuki finally looked up, eyes wide and scared, Doumeki looked... tired. He looked like he was waiting for Watanuki's screams, flinching before the blow fell. He looked _scared_.

"Doumeki, y-you..."

The archer huffed a sigh and pulled one hand out of his pocket. Watanuki couldn't help but watch as it floated through the air and landed on his cheek.

"You really have no idea?"

Doumeki's voice was low, thrumming through Watanuki's body like a plucked string casts ripples through water.

"I've decided. I'm not going to stop, even if you yell."

And he held his breath and closed his eyes, and for once something didn't pop up between them and no evil spirits caught hold of them.

Doumeki tasted like incense and old wood, and even though his hands were shaking with the force of the emotions washing through him, Watanuki slid them slowly up and behind the neck in front of him. Leaning forward, he forced himself to relax a little. _Doumeki wasn't going to stop._

And he didn't realize that the shaking was passing through his entire body untill Doumeki released him, breathless and with concerned eyes.

"Watanuki? Are you alright?"

Swaying a little on his feet, Watanuki reached out and grabbed the arm of Doumeki's uniform. His first real kiss, and he had never even noticed... Well, he had known that Doumeki had cared about him, but the way he felt now...

"I just..." Something like a hysterical laughter choked him as he rested his forehead on Doumeki's shoulder. "I just realized that I'm in love with you."

Doumeki's solid arm wrapped around his waist and held him upright and after a long time of breathing and stillness, Watanuki's shivering stopped.

"Don't make me carry you home."

And finally Watanuki felt all the caring warmth in that voice, felt the wamth his body was desperately sucking in. The warmth his soul desperately needed.

He made one final shudder, loosing the keys to his heart.

"Don't leave me."

"I won't."

"Promise to protect me."

"I already have."

"Th-then will you walk me home?"

He always knew that all the shouting he did was just to hide what he was really feeling, but he never realized it completely untill now. Yuuko had been right - words held such a binding power over people.

He had never ever said that he hated Doumeki.

They were walking like a real couple, Doumeki's archery-strong arm wrapped around his shoulder even though Doumeki himself was steadfastly staring up at the night sky. As they slowly moved through the deserted residential streets, Watanuki slowly relaxed. This wasn't so bad, right? They could be fighting for their souls right now, after all. And it wasn't as though Doumeki was _bad_ looking, quite the opposite...

A flush suddenly heated Watanuki's body in one big rush. No, he had not just thought that. Yes, maybe he cared for Doumeki, and of course along with that caring came some natural physical attraction, and of course their first kiss had been good, sending tingling thrills through his entire body...

"We're here, aren't we?"

Watanuki hadn't even noticed that they had arrived at his apartment.

"Oh!" he said hurredly, still flushed from his previous thoughts. "I-I'm okay now."

He stared down at the ground in embarressment as Doumeki's arm slid from his shoulder up to his neck. It fingered the collar of his uniform and when it brushed the skin of his neck he squeesed his eyes tightly shut. _Just say it now, say it now..._

He felt Doumeki's breath on his cheek before he finally summoned that last golden kernel of courage lodged in his heart to make the equil payment for his words.

"Thank you."

He was suddenly, mortally afraid that Doumeki hadn't heard him as rough lips brushed his own, but when his eyes opened a fraction and saw the expression on his old friend's face his stuttering recentience dissapeared in a haze of slow-moving lips and grasping hands.

When Watanuki had been reduced to a quivering pile of goo once again, Doumeki leant back, heaving out another one of his sighs and looking down at Watanuki with seemingly the same expression he had always used, but now seemed to carry so much more.

"You don't have to thank me for anything."

"Well, then, just... Come up. I'll make you something to eat."

Still blushing and still not knowing at all what he was doing, he grabbed Doumeki by the hand and started into the building.

All he knew was that this was something he was supposed to be doing. If his heart pounded when Doumeki's hand tightened on his own, if he felt like he was going to faint, if nothing else, he could blame it on fate.


End file.
